


A Son of the Bat

by brightwhiteparabolas



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternative Perspective, Angst, Bruce Wayne Has Issues, Complicated Relationships, Cross-cultural, Damian Wayne is a Brat, Gen, Insecure Damian Wayne, Other, Parent-Child Relationship, Parenthood, Past Talia al Ghul/Bruce Wayne, Single Parents, Tags Are Hard, Tags May Change, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-11-22 08:35:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20871299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brightwhiteparabolas/pseuds/brightwhiteparabolas
Summary: An odd, violent, and culturally incompetent ten-year old has been thrust upon Wayne Manor.  Bruce and Alfred decide that the services of a discreet and highly-skilled psychotherapist must be secured as soon as possible.But is it the father or the son who will struggle most to work through the dark impulses that Damian represents? And what will that struggle mean for the boy's chances of finding his place as a true Son of the Bat?





	1. Prologue: Qal'at al-Ghul, Talia

**Author's Note:**

> *** I freaking hate most of this piece now and some of the writing makes me freaking cringe, but I have to leave it here coz I decided that removing/editing would be cheating. May I learn from my mistakes, get better at editing my own crap, and in general improve beyond all recognition. Amen. ***
> 
> I confess that I wrote this as a kind of response to 'Batman and Son'. Because mothers don't give away their children to mess with their enemies' heads, and because pre-teens don't snap into new lives in new countries as painlessly as Damian evidently does. And because I am profoundly bothered by how Talia the Evil, Exotic, Dark-Skinned Woman is displaced as a parent by Batman the Wholesome, White Male Paragon. There's a pretty ugly subtext going on there around gender and race, IMHO.
> 
> Alright. The political rant-storm is over and you can now put your umbrellas away.
> 
> As usual, I start posting only once a piece is more or less done, so this one will be pushed out in about four installments: the little Prologue, the first two chapters, the next two chapters, and then the little Epilogue, without about a week in between each one. The Epilogue is as fluffy as I get.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Talia writes a letter to the father of her child.

She moved her hair out of her eyes, remembering how he had once smoothed it down the length of her spine to see how far it fell.

_You take the measure of everything, my Detective_, she had said, almost impatient.

_But this is important.Your hair looks perfect, but it’s a slightly different length at every point_.

The muscles at the corner of his mouth had twitched, and she realized it was one of his rare, understated jokes.She had not been in the mood to laugh with him.

_"Every strand of hair has different mass and elasticity, Bruce. Remember_ _Da Vinci's notebook, where he compares the flow of hair and water. No two things in nature can have identical properties to each other."_

She brushed her hair to the other side, irritated by her own reminiscing, and began to write.

This is DAMIAN.He is Yours and Mine, she started.She set out the name clearly so that there would be no mistaking it.

I have debated his upbringing endlessly with my Father, who insists that a Child must be with his natural Mother and that We must impart certain skills to him that You would refuse or be unable to teach him.

As for Me, I have disagreed.You might imagine, my Detective, that I do not make a good Mother, and though it may surprise You to learn it, never wanted the Child to be raised in the House of my Father.The Demon’s limbs are many and ever-multiplying, whereas Your resources have always been fewer.The Child should be raised as a Wayne and take his place in the World by Your side as such.While I would much have preferred to transfer his care to You earlier, what You now see is the result of a compromise.

I believe Damian to be as strong and as gifted as any Child of his age might be, but You will find him difficult.He is intelligent, but also arrogant, willful and quick to anger.He is ten, and has been able to defeat Me in hand-to-hand combat twice now, being especially proficient with the sais and able to use his small size to advantage.He speaks six languages and is proficient in most branches of mathematics.He has much to learn about what is truly Important.

As I have said, I am not a good Mother.You in time will make a better Father.Be patient with Yourself and with him.

She half-smiled and wrote something cryptic and tender in Arabic that Bruce would need help to decipher.He had always been endearingly terrible at languages.Then she signed her name in English and closed the heavy paper with the vermilion-streaked Seal of the House of al-Ghul.Its origin would be as unmistakeable as Bruce’s Princeton ring.


	2. London: First Session

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charles Maudsley takes on a celebrity pre-teen client, one who might possibly kill him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting a bit earlier than anticipated, since I hate being late and the rest of the week just turned into a gigantic Lazarus Pit. Lazarus Pit as in madness and glowing spookiness, not restorative properties and everlasting life.

Charles Maudsley looked at the beautiful old mirror on the wall. It was shaped like a golden sunburst and was Spanish, nineteen forties, he had been told. He had found it in a dusty old shop in Battersea and had taken it with him wherever he worked for over ten years now.Although he had toyed with the idea of returning with it permanently to the United States, he knew he wasn’t ready yet.

The man sitting in front of him was American, his receptionist had told him. A big, American man. She had sounded all fluttery.

“Why me?” Maudsley asked him.

“I like what you say at conferences, and I’ve read your work.”

“Then you know that I don't work that much as a pediatric psychiatrist these days. It’s mainly consulting.”

“Better you than someone in Gotham City.I don’t trust anyone there.”

“So what do you want, Mr. Bruce?” Maudsley’s Jamaican accent became stronger, almost strident.

His visitor tapped a heavy finger on one arm of the yellow Chesterfield chair. His hands were rough and somewhat at odds with the rest of his appearance, which was nondescript and expensive, and it occurred to Maudsley that this was an individual who wanted to be inconspicuous.For such a large, handsome man, he came remarkably close to melting into the background like a model for some middle-market catalogue. And yes, Maudsley found himself smiling, a Hugo Boss suit - tasteful and utterly uninteresting - was the very definition of nondescript.

The man laughed, but it sounded more like a bark.

“I don’t have much respect for the media, and they don’t have much respect for me.I’d rather fly to the UK once a month than have my personal affairs leaked to the gutter press, blurry photos and all.”

“Please call me Charles.”

The man shrugged, and Maudsley noticed that the jacket of his suit was rather large on him. Did he not want anyone to see what he looked like beneath that bland exterior?

“My real name is Bruce Wayne.”

“I see.”

The man studied Maudsley’s face. His blue eyes were hard and curious. Something swirled and settled in Maudsley’s mind, like a leaf fluttering to the surface of a sidewalk and sticking there at last.

“You’re Bruce Wayne. Wayne of Wayne Enterprises.”

“It took you long enough.”

The man’s lips curved upward. He wants to laugh, Maudsley thought, but can’t permit himself to relax that much. Maudsley shook his head and chuckled for them both.

“And I didn’t even offer you coffee.”

Bruce Wayne held out one of those incongruous hands of his, and Maudsley noticed a gold Princeton ring.

“I never drink coffee or tea. Thank you.” 

“So what would you like to discuss, Mr. Wayne?”

“Call me Bruce. “

The man cleared his throat for longer than he had to, and finally said:“I want to talk about my son Damian. Maybe you’ve seen something about him in the tabloids.But not, I hope, that he’s a ten-year old killing machine.”

***

The boy had green eyes in a pointy, light-brown face. He looked straight back at Maudsley, haughty and otherwise impossible to read. Like his father, he woreexpensive, unremarkable clothes and could have passed for any British public school child instead of one of the world’s best-known pre-teens.Much as his media-shy father had tried to gloss over hissudden appearance, it had been easy for the press to uncover the fact that Talia al-Ghul had left the boy in his charge with little more than the results of a DNA test and a Bottega Veneta carry-on trolley.

He’s quite small for his age, thought Maudsley.

“You are Charles Maudsley,” the child said.

His voice was clipped and very formal. The accent was almost unplaceable, as though he had learned how to speak English in a Saudi palace by listening to old BBC broadcasts.

“And I suppose you’re Damian Wayne.”

“Yes. I am my father’s only son.”

“Are you proud of that?”

The boy didn’t answer.“Has my father asked you to analyze me?” he asked.

“No,” said Maudsley truthfully. “He didn’t know what to ask. He’s worried about you. It’s no easy thing coming to a new country and learning an entirely different set of rules.”

The boy nodded and waved his hand dismissively. The gesture was more proper to an Oriental despot than a ten-year old boy, and would have been hilarious had Maudsley not been made aware of his background. Ra’as al-Ghul and the League of Assassins were outside his previous experience, but Bruce Wayne had insisted that he knew what he was taking on.

“Does it not occur to you that my father might want to kill me?”

Maudsley had no children of his own, but his professional experience of them was vast. This was nonetheless a question he had not yet heard.

“Tell me more,” he said. He kept his face impassive.

Damian half-smiled and lifted his chin higher.He had a fierce air, despite his neat little frame, but Maudsley felt a flash of vulnerability from him and suddenly felt better.

“It was a manner of speaking. Of course he will not kill me, although he has Richard Grayson already, and Richard’s friend Tim Drake.Mother never spoke to me of them.”

Maudsley instinctively changed tack, pointing to his own mouth and inclining his head towards Damian’s.

“How’d you do that?”

Damian’s face was suddenly full of mischief.

“If you are referring to my damaged tooth, it is from riding Grayson’s bicycle. It was my first time with a bicycle, and I hit a tree.”He laughed, and Maudsley laughed with him.

"Do you want to tell me more about life in Gotham?Anything you like.”

***

He sat upright at the foot of the table, green eyes burning.He rapped on his empty glass of juice with the handle of the silver knife, and then he rapped again. Richard Grayson, who was waving one hand at Jason Todd while talking passionately through a mouthful of toast and peanut butter, swiveled his head in Damian’s direction and raised an eyebrow.

“Little fucker,” muttered Jason under his breath.Jason looked very much the worse for wear and smelled of a strange plant-like substance that Damian could not identify.

“Cut out that knocking,” said Jason, raising his voice slightly.

Alfred left the room, carrying a tray laden with hot towels and a sliced lemon.Damian glared at him.

“He is not listening to me,” Damian said.He let the knife crash onto the table.

“Who isn’t listening?” Richard asked him.

“Pennyworth.I asked him to fetch more juice.”

“Little fucker,” said Jason, aloud this time and in a tone of wonder.

“You don’t _do_ that, Damian,” Richard said.“You get your own orange juice around here, okay? Alfie’s there for Bruce in the mornings.Not us.”He added:“Yeah, come to think of it, Alfred doesn’t work for any of us.He works for Bruce.If he does anything for you or me, it’s not because he has to, it’s because he’s being nice.Alright?”

“And this one?” Damian used his head to motion to Jason.

“Are you even in this country legally, you little fucker?” said Jason.

Almost before the words left Jason’s mouth, Damian had hurled himself across the corner of the breakfast table, toppling the older boy onto Alfred’s prized travertine tiles with the crash of a kitchen chair and the more gentle sound of a box of cornflakes voiding its contents over oak beams that had formed part of the Mayflower.

Damian straddled Jason’s prone upper body, one knee pushed into the space between his chin and his neck.Jason’s skills were born of anger, deprivation and years on the streets, and though he now had two years of training with the Bat Family under his belt, he was no match for the fearsome abilities of a Grandson of the Demon.He gagged and gave up.

“You are fortunate,” said Damian.“ I will not kill you in my Father’s house.I will break your collar bone instead.”

“Get off him, Damian,” said Richard in his most reasonable voice.

Damian pulled back a small, tan-colored fist and Jason glowered.Defeated he might be, but cowardly never.

“Oh no you don’t,” said another voice.

Damian was plucked several feet into the air and deposited on the kitchen table.Tim Drake had arrived.Surrounded by spilled granola and remnants of toast, his trousers soaking up rivulets of coffee, Damian looked up at the newcomer.He was as cool as he had been when he first came downstairs for breakfast.

“So you are the Drake of whom Father has spoken,” he said.“Would you pour me a glass of juice?”

Jason raised himself from the floor on one elbow.His red hair was full of cornflakes and his eyes were bloodshot.

“That’s Talia’s anchor baby,” he croaked. “Entitled little fucker.”

What none of them yet realized was that Damian had never poured a glass of milk or juice for himself in his life.He was accustomed to stepping out of bed before five a.m. every day onto the backs of two assassins who were not allowed to look him in the face, his feet never touching the bare floor unless in training with his mother or grandfather.He could cut a silk scarf into six pieces before it fell to the ground, but had never cut his own meat or filled a plate of food for himself at table.He was able to forage in the harshest of conditions, but could not make his own bed.

“So I was obliged to attack Todd again,” explained Damian to Charles Maudsley in a tranquil voice.“And then Grayson, Drake and Pennyworth tied my hands and legs with towels and put me in the cupboard of brooms.In the afternoon, Grayson taught me how to open cartons, and how to use a toaster.It may only be used to heat bread, he said.And then he gave me something to eat called ice cream. It is very good, and not healthy.”He frowned. "I do not know if my Grandfather would want me to eat it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> British public school = US private school or prep school
> 
> Hugo Boss = borderline unacceptable for a billionaire. Alfred said so, not me. There is a bit of a story as to why Bruce is wearing this particular suit on this particular day, but it isn't relevant here. Alfred generally makes sure that Bruce is provided with what he needs from Savile Row, and Alfred favors Henry Poole for suits. Incidentally, Maudsley's nephew Jerome works there. Isn't it great that Batman and the Joker (at least, my version of him) can also be such opposites when it comes to fashion? You wouldn't see Bruce dead in Hedi Slimane or Rei Kawakubo, and Mr J. would find traditional British tailoring horrifically staid, although I think he might give a pass to Cad & Dandy. No, I didn't make them up.
> 
> Richard Grayson = Richard Grayson, because I can't manage Dick Grayson, especially given the vast amounts of M/M involving him on this very site. I have nothing against well-written smut, but I don't know anyone who calls themselves Dick these days, and would rather focus on writing than sit there giggling.


	3. London: Fifth Session

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What is it about Damian that makes him such a threat?

“Apparently, he’s been vicious the last couple of weeks,” said Bruce.“Of course, his mother used to be vicious.Could be vicious.” 

Or could be as sweet as apricots in honey, he thought, remembering her skin, several shades darker than Damian’s, her huge, slightly slanting eyes, and the tiny silver rings that she liked to wear on her toes.She used to sing to herself softly when she thought he wasn’t listening, sometimes in Berber, sometimes in other languages.

“You can’t expect him to be an angel.He’s undergoing a process of tremendous personal and cultural adjustment,” Maudsley said, and Bruce returned to the small study with a jerk. The scent of Talia’s perfume, what was it called, Carnal Flower, was still in his nostrils, though it was mixing already with the cool, dirt-laden London air flowing in through the open bow windows.There was something wrong with the heating in the building, and Maudsley had apologized that for now this was the only way he could keep the room at a reasonable temperature.

For a moment, Bruce thought he could see Talia’s face reflected in the lovely gold mirror over the fireplace.She was smiling at him, half-mocking and half-mysterious, and it was impossible to know what she was thinking.What was that in her letter about being patient with Damian and himself?He sighed and pushed his fingers through his hair.

He had hardly seen Damian this past month.Corporate, philanthropic and other, more confidential, interests had taken up much of his time and he had been an infrequent presence at Wayne Manor.Richard Grayson had kept him updated on the boy’s doings, often very amusingly.

“You may be right, but I’m not sure why adjusting to life in Gotham has to be about constant fights with the other boys.Sprained wrists.Bleeding ears.Bloodcurdling howls.Or, just yesterday, kicking down an old and very valuable tree in the grounds of Wayne Manor, apparently to show Richard Grayson what he was being spared.”

Bruce’s mouth quivered slightly.After a few seconds, Maudsley stated in a bland voice:

“You find that funny.”

“I don’t find it funny at all.”

“You appear to be laughing.Or trying not to laugh.”

“Grayson thought it was funny.I don’t always understand his sense of humor.”

A few more seconds passed, and Bruce wondered whether Talia would re-appear in the mirror.Over the last months, it had become evident that she had told Damian nothing of his identity as Batman.Her fierce loyalty, usually reserved for her father and the servants of their house, sometimes showed itself in the most unexpected ways.Despite ourselves, I am still your Beloved, he found himself thinking, and a pang shot through him of an emotion that he couldn’t place.

Once more, Maudsley broke into his train of thought. 

“Everything we’ve spoken about so far leads me to believe that you’re avoiding the boy because of something about him that goes beyond his training.It comes back to something about you. The fear is of something in yourself, not of him. What do you think?”

Bruce folded his arms across his chest. 

“I thought you said you didn’t work with adults, Charles.”

Maudsley threw his hands out in a deliberate gesture that was almost as foreign as one of Damian’s.

“I thought you said you wanted Damian to work with someone who didn’t fit the usual mold.”

Bruce levered himself out of the yellow chair and walked to the open windows.It was more comfortable to stand with his back towards Maudsley, and the sooty air smelled surprisingly like it did at home, although it was less humid.He could hear the muffled rush of the early evening traffic from Baker Street.

“Did you know that I boxed at Princeton?” he asked. 

He pushed one of the long window panes out a few more inches and leaned his forearms on the windowsill.

“Of course you didn’t. You’re not a reader of gossip columns, thank God.But I was almost expelled at one point for beating another student senseless.It was a fight outside a restaurant with some Ukrainian kid from Gotham who was attending on a merit scholarship.The Little Kiev affair took Alfred quite a bit of work to smooth over.More than any of the drug and alcohol-fueled binges that the tabloids used to get hold of regularly.I was lucky that Alfred never gave up on me.I was lucky they let me graduate.Look at my ring.”

He half-turned, raising the fourth finger of his right hand to show Maudsley where the ring was conspicuously dented just below its square-cut orange stone.

“At the last minute, I decided to punch a steel pole instead of the kid’s temple. Otherwise, it would have been manslaughter.I wear the ring to remind me of it.Not because I give a damn about Princeton.I don’t, of course.”

Maudsley’s face was gentle.It had not changed since Bruce had started speaking.

“It’s some time since your student days, but this isn't behind you.Has anyone ever suggested you talk about it in a therapeutic setting?”

“Yes. Damian’s mother did.”

***

_Love is never enough, Beloved,_ said Talia._There must be other things that align._

They were in Casablanca.It was the middle of the morning, and a light Atlantic breeze parted the curtains.Late summer sunshine turned wide swathes of the sheets into golden rivers, and she was sitting at the end of the bed with her back to him.

_You’re so melodramatic,_ he said. _I don’t care.Do you think my ancestors weren’t criminals and outlaws? How do you think the modern West was settled?_

Talia turned around, and to his shock, her huge green eyes had filled with tears.She hardly ever cried, and he had never seen her give in entirely to any wave of strong emotion.It was one of the endless number of things that fascinated him about her.She was like a beautiful maze garden in Spain that he had visited with his mother when he was six years old: the further in you ventured to find a way out, the more you lost yourself in exploration.

_My father will do terrible things to you.He will turn you into someone you are not, Beloved, and you will not even realize what he is doing._

_But we can get around him.You’ll come back with me to Gotham, and we’ll figure it out._

She snorted.

_Don’t be a child.No-one can outwit him._

_My darling, no-one has outwitted him yet.That doesn’t mean it can’t happen._

_Bruce, I cannot marry you.I have decided._

He felt the panic rising inside him, but managed to keep his voice even.

_Why?_

_It is impossible.You must see that we come from different worlds.And I am bound to mine._

_ ***_

Bruce shared none of those details with Maudsley.

“Well,” he said. “It was an argument and I lost control and shook her.I was so angry that everything was a blur.Luckily, she’s almost as good a fighter as I am.”

He laughed, but it was a raw, painful sound.

“She twisted away and told me that I needed help.That there were things I should be talking about.I didn’t see her for several years after that.”

There was a long, heavy silence.

“Distressing events,” said Maudsley.“For you and anyone close to you.And, as you said, I doubt I’m the right person to help you explore the impulses behind them, although I’m sure I could point you to someone who could.But what bearing do these feelings have on your relationship with Damian?That’s perhaps where I can be of use.”

"Those impulses," said Bruce. "As an adult, I may be able to control them. But can Damian? Trained to kill from birth?I’m not so sure.”

Maudsley put his hands behind his head and flexed his arms outward.His eyes were thoughtful, fixed on nowhere in particular.

“I’m about to step way out of line here, Bruce, just like I did when I published that paper on telekinesis and knew that it would get me fired.” He sighed.“I have to wonder if you look at Damian and see some kind of embodiment of your own darker impulses.But if that’s true, I also wonder whether it’s fair to ask him to carry that burden for you.Let me point out that nobody is born a killer,but that you will almost certainly make him one by driving him away and leaving him with fewer choices.If you can bring him closer, you may yet find a way for both of you to put some demons to rest.”He paused.“Does any of that make sense?”

Bruce had turned towards the window again.It was fully dark now, and it had begun to rain, the kind of cold, sharp, unmistakably English winter rain that penetrated to the bones if it caught you unprepared.A little gust of wind brought a spatter of moisture into the room.

“It makes sense,” he said at last.“Whether I agree or not is an entirely different question.”

***

Traffic on the way back to the private airfield outside Heathrow was heavy,slowed down by the end of the working day and the steadily streaming rain, now turning into sleet.Damian was fully engaged playing catch-the-toy-mouse with Alfred the cat, either oblivious to the fact that he was still in trouble for having sneaked his new pet onto the Gulfstream or else choosing to brazen it out.

This left Bruce with plenty of time to consider his earlier conversation with Maudsley.There was relatively little that he had given away.A student brawl and a lover’s tiff that had spiraled out of control could have been anyone’s story, and would certain not be traceable to the faceless protector of Gotham known as Batman.His dreams - or intrusions, as he preferred to call them - were the bigger problem and one he could not share with Maudsley.

The primal anger was always waiting for him somewhere.It swirled in the background like one of Crane’s insidious toxins, looking for a chance to billow outward and overwhelm him.In the waking world, he could never let that happen, but his sleeping self had no such inhibitions, and in dreams he would run rampant, making a mockery of boundaries that were hard and distant limits for him when conscious. The dreams would stop for weeks at a time, sometimes even months, and then they would return. If Selina was there, it was easier. Last time, she had switched on the little lamp on her side of the bed, butting her head into his chest and wrapping her long arms around him.

“Same thing?”

“Same.”

“You know you’ll never do it.”

“I don’t.That’s the problem.”

“You’re just afraid.”She ran her fingers through his hair. 

“One day, I think I'll snap and kill someone.”

He disentangled himself gently from her and got out of bed.

He was startled from his thoughts by a rush of cold air from the back seat.Damian had rolled down the window and was stretching his arm out in delight, Alfred curled up on his shoulder.

“Is this the snow, Father?”

“No.It’s sleet.It’s neither ice nor rain.We’ll get snow in Gotham soon enough, and then you’ll wish you’d never wanted it to come.”

“It looks like tiny bullets.Or even shurikens.”

Typical for the boy to compare a natural phenomenon to murder weapons, thought Bruce with some impatience.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Carnal Flower is a real perfume from Frederic Malle. I am told by people who know better than I do that it is a hate-or-love photorealistic, show-stopping, tuberose-and-wet-rainforest scent. That would seem to suit Talia perfectly.
> 
> Princeton, unlike Oxford, does not have a real boxing club. So we'll have to assume that Bruce was taking private lessons, which would make sense anyway for so many reasons.
> 
> How can Bruce be an accomplished student athlete as well as a debauched drunkard? Read Abby Wambach's autobiography. It made me cry. A combination of self-hatred and natural gifts somehow allowed her to combine intermittent binge drinking and eating with a stellar soccer career until it just became too much. The human body - and mind - is capable of astonishing things. I have always liked the idea of Bruce doing awful things at university and then deciding to get his shit together. I have a whole Bruce Does Princeton head cannon, and it's horrific.


	4. London: Sixth Session

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce learns the hard way that Damian deserves to be heard.

The small, dark grey cat was absent this time.

“My father is not talking to me,” Damian said.“He’s outside in the car with Tim.”

The boy was as furious as Maudsley had ever seen him.He refused to sit down, and walked from one end of the room to the other as if someone were pulling him back and forth along the length of a metal zipper.

“You’re later than I’d expected,” said Maudsley.His tone was mild.“I was worried.Your father mentioned something about an emergency and a diversion via the Faroe Islands.I assumed you’d run into a storm.”

“The jet’s software was hacked.”

Damian stopped walking and sat down on the striped sofa, tucking his legs into a yoga pose.He stared across at Maudsley, as though expecting something by way of a response.When there was none, he continued.

“We were attacked by the May Day Front.”

“I’m sorry?”

Perhaps his ears had mislead him, or it was one of Damian’s ironic exaggerations. Primero de Mayo, or the May Day Front, was the violent North American offshoot of Shining Path, recently resurgent in Canada and the United States and responsible for several high-profile kidnappings and armed robberies.

“We were more than equal to them.” Damian waved his hand in his favorite dismissive gesture.“Even Drake. He is clever, it must be said.He was the one who first realized that the Gulfstream was off-course.”

There was silence in Maudsley’s study for a few long seconds while his mind went into overdrive.What kind of billionaire kept a standing monthly appointment after a hijack attempt by revolutionary terrorists, and did Bruce Wayne always treat Maoists with machine guns like a blip on the weather channel? How much of his life lay hidden beyond the little he had shared with Maudsley?

The ormolu clock on the mantelpiece ticked loudly, and Damian heaved a gusty sigh.

“I don’t want to talk about it.I didn’t kill anybody.He’ll see.Those friends of his at the stupid British military base where we landed will see.”

“It’s alright.You know you don’t have to talk about anything unless you want to.”

Damian slid off the sofa, and moved to the yellow Chesterfield chair.A seat that was slightly too small for his father made a generous-sized nest for him.He hooked both legs over one of its arms and leaned his head into the opposite corner, shutting his eyes, breathing in through his nose and exhaling through his mouth.After about ten minutes into the exercise, he swung his legs onto the floor and stood up.

“This is ridiculous,” he said. “Would you ask Father to come in?And also Tim?”

***

The chairs in the room had been re-arranged so that they could sit in a rough semi-circle, with Maudsley making a fourth point to complete the circle.

He had dark, wavy hair and dark eyes in a thoughtful face and was attractive rather than striking. His height and build were average.A fresh, nasty-looking cut ran from one of his nostrils through his upper lip.So this was the Tim Drake of whom Damian was so jealous, Maudsley thought.There was an ease between him and Bruce that made it hard to believe he wasn’t a Wayne family member.He looked unsure of himself, glancing between Bruce and Maudsley and back again.

“Am I supposed to be here?” he asked.“I only tagged along to go Christmas shopping.”

Bruce had a hard expression on his face.His brows were drawn together and he kept looking from his cell phone to Damian and back again, as if there were something that he couldn’t believe.

“Sam Cattermole made contact from Grenshavn,” he said. “I want to show you boys something.”

The image was black and white and somewhat grainy, but its content was clear enough.For the first few seconds, little happened. A clothed body was displayed, prone on a white-tiled slab, one of a tiered set of shelves in what was perhaps a morgue or some kind of hospital holding area. Its face was concealed by strips of cloth wound round its jaw and forehead, but its shape was unmistakably female, and it was tall and lithe, with long gloved hands and narrow feet, one of which was distinguished by a paper or cloth tag attached around the ankle.

After a few seconds into the footage, the body stirred and flexed its fingers. The woman sat up, bending over herself, and it looked like she was coughing.She put her feet on the floor, pushing them into the ground to test their strength, and stood up. She pushed the handle of the door downward, finding it locked.She shrugged, and had Cattermole sent a sound file to Bruce with the surveillance video images, they would have heard her laugh. 

There was a small, heavy metal cabinet in one corner of the white tiled room. They saw her look at it, and they then the cabinet heaved itself aloft and made a couple of turns mid-air before colliding with the edge of the the security door, crushing its hinges and leaving it swinging wide open. It landed inside the room again, right side up.

The woman appeared to laugh again and patted the cabinet, saying something to it.Then she walked to the open door, looking both ways, and the video went dark.

“A telekine,” said Maudsley.“We don’t see that in adults these days, as you know, Bruce.”

“Cattermole’s people have never seen anything like it,” said Bruce.“They were unprepared and so was I.” He looked at both boys.“Damian, I made a mistake.I - “

Damian’s eyes were hot and his voice was angry.He didn’t wait for his father to finish.

“I am not some street-bred assassin for hire,” he said.“Grandfather and Mother taught me self-control.I tried to tell you that I had not killed, and you would not hear me.”

Next to him, Tim shrugged.The movement of his head and shoulders was small, but perceptible. Maudsley registered that he was agreeing with the younger boy.

“Did you want to say something, Tim?” he asked.

“Am I allowed to? I don’t know how this works. I wasn’t supposed to be here anyway.”

“Go ahead,” said Bruce. “Say whatever you want.I’m listening.”

“I tried to talk to you too,” Tim said.“Her body was warm when we landed at Grenshavn.No pulse, but warm. And hardly any stiffness. That seemed unusual, even though you’d said that Damian had killed her.You were too angry to talk to me, but I wanted to tie her up like the others.What did you do to her, Damian?” There was only curiosity in his voice.

Damian’s small face wore a smug expression.

“It was a Forbidden Maneuver,” he said.“Father, I thought you would recognize it. It was the Sleep of Death.”

“I didn’t,” said Bruce. “I’ve never studied the Forbidden Maneuvers.For good reason, son."

“You put her into a kind of suspended state so that she wouldn’t be able to attack me even if I knocked her out?” Tim asked.

“Exactly. I thought Father would realize she was a telekine.You know that some can attack even when half-conscious.I did not think Father would want to risk that, since you were already hurt.” He pointed to his own lip and gestured with his head to Tim’s.“But he didn’t care.”

“I'm sorry, Damian.”Bruce’s voice was heavy, almost indifferent-sounding. “I still don’t know if you made the best decision. But I made the wrong one. I didn’t listen.You're not the only angry one.”

He pressed a couple of keys on his phone, and a crisp, Sandhurst-educated voice came on.

“Brucie, it’s a bit of a mess to be honest.You saw the video.She got one of our smaller planes and jettisoned it in one of the remote archipelagos before disappearing. All the other prisoners are secured.MI6 higher-ups asking if you know any experts on telekinesis.Obviously this has to be hush-hush.Stop by when you can, would you?”

“He’s not saying he’s mad,” said Tim, puzzled.

“That’s because he’s British,” said Bruce. “They’re extremely polite and that’s how you know they’re furious.”He sighed.“Damian, I should have heard you out.”

Damian was shaking his head from side to side in rebuttal. He waved his hand, as if he were trying to brush away flies that kept settling on him no matter how often he swept them off.

“That is not the problem,” he said.“The problem is not that you didn’t listen.The problem is that you don’t trust me.The problem is that you never believe me, because I am not like Tim or Richard or Jay.”His speech was becoming more stilted, and his accent more pronounced, and he stopped speaking.Then he took a small breath, and continued in his new, more Americanized voice: “Sorry doesn’t change that.”

He pushed back his chair and looked directly into Bruce’s face.When Bruce said nothing, he got up, made his signature dismissive gesture, and walked out of the room.Tim looked at Bruce, opened his mouth, and then shut it again.

There were a few seconds of tense silence, and Maudsley decided to throw the conventions of family therapy to the winds.

“Does someone want to explain to me exactly what happened on the way here?” he asked.

***

The Gulfstream was somewhat the worse for wear after their encounter with the May Day Front, but the damage was superficial.It was easy to repair the door that Bruce and Tim had detached and toppled onto the Front's boarding party, and for security reasons Sam Cattermole had sent a new pilot and a few secret service personnel to the private airfield near Heathrow.Bruce was eager to return to the US as soon as they could, and they departed at about eleven p.m.

Damian, worn out by the events of the day, had fallen asleep before take-off in a small, angry hump towards the rear of the jet.He hadn’t finished eating supper.Tim tucked two blankets around him and walked a few seats forward to find Bruce.

“What are the Forbidden Maneuvers?” he asked.His voice was hushed. It was never a good idea to discuss these subjects in front of outsiders, no matter how trustworthy they were, and two members of the MI6 were seated nearby with an RAF flight lieutenant located just behind the cockpit area.

Bruce looked weary, but was wide awake. “They’re a set of jutsu developed by Sensei, Damian’s great-grandfather.Their practice, let alone their mastery, would almost by definition involve the loss of life.They demand precise anatomical knowledge and the highest level of martial arts skills.You don’t want to know more than that, believe me.”

Tim looked thoughtful.There was an uncharacteristically stubborn expression on his face.

“Couldn’t Damian show us a variant of them?What he did was impressive.We’d all benefit from knowing some of that.”

“No,” said Bruce.

Tim’s face hardly changed, but his eyes blinked several times, something that they did by themselves when he was agitated.Finally he said.

“Why do you hate the kid so much? Is it because of his mother?”

The sound of the jet’s engines grew louder as it gained altitude.

“I don’t hate Damian, and no.Don’t ask about things you don’t understand.That includes complex adult relationships.”

“You’re not exactly nice to him.”

“He doesn’t make it easy to be nice to him.”

Tim cleared his throat.His eyes were blinking even more rapidly, and he squeezed them together a couple of times to make them stop.Then he said:

“Well, if you can’t deal with him, send him back to Talia.Because this is killing him.Do you know how jealous he is of Grayson and me?It’s because he thinks we’re better than him and that he’ll never be like us.Every time he tries to picks a fight, it makes me want to cry.And I’m the one he resents the most.”He shook his head.“He thinks you’ll never care about him, and I’m beginning to think he has a point."

“Is that what you came to say?”

“I was hoping you would let him teach us something.But I don’t think you will.”

“Not this, Tim. In good time, yes.But not now, and not this.The Forbidden Maneuvers are not something that any of us should consider using. Ever. Do you understand?”

There was a long pause.

“Maybe.I don’t know.”

Tim kicked the leg of the seat where it met the thick grey carpet that covered the floor of the Gulfstream.He didn’t kick it hard, but he still kicked it.

“This is difficult,” he said to Bruce.“This is really, really difficult.I just don’t understand why you're so tough on Damian.The kid is just a kid.”

***

There was a little dim room on the mezzanine level of Wayne Manor that had a small balcony and lots of old books.It was still used as a coatroom when the Manor was thrown open for balls or fundraisers, but was now mostly a good place to for hiding, waiting, or taking long-distance phone calls in ostensible privacy. Almost lost inside the room, Damian lay face-up on a brown corduroy sofa, a foot slung over one of its arms.

“Mother?”

“Yes, my love.”

“Why do you love my Father?”

The throaty voice on the other end of the line became huskier.

“There is no-one like him, my love.”

There was a sigh followed by a sharp crackle.She must be very far away, thought Richard Grayson, who was listening in using the Wayne Manor audio-visual surveillance system.Because of security concerns, he had told himself.

“Why did you teach me to kill if Father refuses to kill?”

Richard heard another deep sigh.

“You are not only the son of your father, Damian.You are also the grandson of Ra’as al-Ghul.This may not be easy to understand now, but one day I think you will, my love.”

Damian shifted on the sofa, and brought both knees closer to his chin. Alfred the cat scampered to the ground and disappeared behind a bookshelf.

“I am not the only son of my Father, Mother.And his other sons do not know how to kill.Nor do they know any of the Forbidden Maneuvers.” 

“You are sad, my love, and I am sorry that you are sad.But great princes and great men must be sad sometimes.Your father in his life has been very sad, it must be said.”

Damian hugged his knees tightly. Then he said: “Mother, I will never be like Father.”

The little voice was bleak, and Richard pulled the back of his hand across his eyes.He had no further security concerns, he decided, and removed his headset.He left the translation and tracking software running to record the rest of their conversation.Just in case, he told himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The May Day Front/Primero de Mayo is of course a total fabrication. Shining Path, or Sendero Luminoso, is not, although they're largely defunct today. 
> 
> May Day thought a billionaire and his son would be an easy kidnap target and got that assumption hugely wrong. I kind of wanted to choreograph a big fight scene, and then realized it wouldn't be in keeping with the rest of the piece, which is much more intimate: the details of the fight don't really matter, although I know them all in my head, it's the impact that they have on the relationships here. So I approached the fight and its aftermath a different way. (One of these days, I really will write a fight. I have to justify all the fake weapons in my house somehow.)
> 
> It was a difficult decision to put some holes in Tim and change him from the original. This is due to my own shortcomings. I have never found Perfect Tim very easy to deal with, and knew I wouldn't be able to write him. So I dialed up the nerd factor, allowed him to sulk, and made him more sympathetic to Damian than in the original.


	5. Wayne Manor: Bruce

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At last, Bruce finds the words to speak to Damian.

Bruce knocked, and pushed open the door to his son’s room.He realized with a stab of guilt that he had never been inside it.It was austere, like all of the boys’ rooms except for Richard’s, which was full of circus posters, aerialist’s equipment, and Gotham Knights football paraphernalia.Damian had a small bed and a desk and not much else besides an assortment of wooden and polypropylene practice weapons stacked in one corner.The wall above his desk displayed a large, painstakingly-drawn cutout of a black bat.Him and every other boy in Gotham, thought Bruce.

It was dark, and a small figure stood at the open window.Cold air was flowing in, and the room was only illuminated from the outside by the Wayne Manor grounds safety lights.Damian was holding his hand out to catch the first flakes of falling snow.Winter had officially arrived.

“I can go back to Mother,” he said, without turning around.

“I don’t want you to go.”

Neither of them said anything for a few seconds.Then Damian spoke.

“I think this is no place for me.”

Damian’s face was still and his eyes had very little expression in them when he turned his head to look at Bruce.It was impossible to tell whether he was hiding his feelings or whether he genuinely felt nothing.

I can’t believe he’s only ten, Bruce thought.And then he thought: He’s two years older than I was when I saw my parents die in front of me, gunned down while we were still giggling about the movie we’d seen.Yes, I suppose he could be ten.He’s Talia’s son after all.And mine.

He tried to think of something to say, and came up with nothing. Something prickly and uncomfortable blocked his throat, andDamian came to the rescue with small talk.

“I like the snow,” he said.His hand was still held out, patiently catching the large, soft flakes as they fell.“It is very different from the sleet in London.”He waited to catch a few more flakes, and then said: “I suppose I should call Mother.”

He left Bruce at the open window and walked out of the room without closing the door.

A flurry of snow whistled into the room, depositing itself on the floor, and Bruce ignored it, letting the cold bite into him outside and within.He leaned over the windowsill, feeling the top of his head become wet and meltwater drip over the sides of his face like someone else's tears.It was good that he had Lucius at Wayne Enterprises, he told himself, and even better that he had Alfred at home.He had never been good at finding the right words, and he was fortunate to have these two, each as brilliant as the other in his own sphere. One of them might have been able to provide the words to keep Damian in his room on this dark blue, whirling night, but it was neither one's work to do so. 

His face and the collar of his shirt were soaked by the time Richard Grayson startled him from his thoughts.

“What did you say to him? He looked like he was crying.I had to pretend I didn’t see him, and he had to pretend he didn’t see me pretending not to see him.”

“I didn't say much. I thought he didn’t want to stay here.”

“You know that’s bullshit.”

“He thinks there’s no place for him here.”Bruce spoke heavily.“I didn’t know how to respond.It’s not true, you know.But it’s my fault, and I didn’t know what to say.”

“Well, think of something.”Richard balanced on one footand grasped the other foot in his right hand, bringing it up behind his back towards the opposite shoulder.“I already have Slade. I can't deal with another wise-guy assassin type if Damian goes bad.”

“Are those Barbara’s socks?”Bruce was momentarily distracted.

“Don’t change the subject. I’m going to bring the kid back here.”

A stony-faced Damian stood just inside the doorway, drawn up to his full, small height.

“Grayson said that you wanted to talk to me again.”

There was no defiance in his voice, but no respect either.Bruce noticed that he hadn’t used the word ‘Father’.

“I did.Why don’t you come here so we don’t have to talk across the room?”

How could Talia’s mahogany-dark hair look so different on this boy, wondered Bruce. A bittersweet memory suddenly came to him, and with it the beginnings of a wild idea.

“Have you looked closely at the snowflakes?”

Damian shook his head, and leaned forward as Bruce let them fall over the black face of his father’s old Patek Philippe.This room is far too cold, Bruce thought.

“None of them are identical,” the boy said.

“No leaves are identical to each other either," said Bruce. And neither are the strands of your mother's hair, he thought. "They follow patterns, and you can identify the variables that make them unique. Someone in Sweden even built a model that predicts how much snowflakes can vary from each other. You might have thought they're the same, but they're all different. What else can you think of like that?" 

Bruce watched Damian’s small nose screw itself up.

"Dunes of sand," he said. "Drops of rain. Anything larger than an atom, of course. There are different kinds of mathematical approaches to describe these variations. But that is not what you wanted to discuss with me."

Bruce raised his hand, feeling increasingly confident of his strategy. “We’ll get there, Damian. What have you left out?”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s not that difficult.Maybe that’s why you’ve overlooked it.”

Damian looked blank, and Bruce plunged on recklessly.It was this or nothing, he thought, but he also thought that it could work.If not, he would have to call Talia to ask for help, which would be an unmitigated and painful disaster.

“None of you boys are the same,” he said. "You think that Richard, Tim and Jason are alike, but they're very different from each other. Tell me about Richard. Is he like Jay?"

Damian shook his head.

"So tell me about him."

Damian rolled his eyes. "Everyone likes him. He can do many acrobatics. He gets angry more easily than Tim. Sometimes he is messy." Damian paused. He said: "Richard is very good to me. I sometimes think it is a trick."

"No, it's not a trick. This is not the League of Assassins. How about Tim? Is Tim like Richard?"

"Tim thinks about everything. He works hard. He never loses his temper when I fight him." A tinge of resentment crept into Damian's voice and Bruce decided to ignore it. "Tim is very careful. Always." He smirked. "And Tim likes a girl named Stephanie." Bruce decided to ignore that too.

"Now I'll tell you about Jason," he said. “Jason is so brave that people sometimes think he’s crazy. He never gives up, and he’s always willing to try something new.People think he’s a rule-breaker, but there’s a logic to what he does. And you? You tell me. But I think you’re uncommonly skilled.And you’re tough, and you’re a quick study.And there are so many other things you can do that we just don’t know about yet.But that doesn’t even matter. You’re all here, and you’re all different, and there’s a place here for everyone.We have some features in common, but we can’t all be identical.I don’t expect or want you to be the same,beyond a set of values that we share.Does that make sense?” 

Damian continued to look down at the large flakes of snow falling over Bruce’s watch. At last he said:“Yes, I think it makes sense to me.”

They stood that way for a few more moments, until Damian said:“I like your watch, Father.My grandfather has one not unlike it.”

“It’ll be yours one day.“ He turned and pointed both forefingers at Damian. “So make sure that you stay around to claim it.”

Damian leaned out of the window and caught a few snowflakes on his tongue. Then he grinned, and pulled the long window pane in to shut out the falling snow.

“I'm going to take you downstairs to a place in this house called the Batcave," said Bruce. "I think you'll like it there."

“Can Richard come too?”

“Only if he changes out of those terrible pink socks he's wearing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is in fact more than one snowflake prediction model kicking around out there IRL. If we're harking back to Talia's original reminiscences, that Da Vinci notebook she mentions is also real.
> 
> Richard's socks do not belong to Barbara. They are his, and he is very proud of them.


	6. Epilogue: Damian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few months on, a lot has changed.

“Look,” said Richard.He had been to the Seven-Eleven that morning with Jason and Barbara to stock up on snacks and chewing gum.“Jay found an article about you in 'Hello People'. He was nice enough to buy it for you.”

“Jason is my nemesis,” said Damian.There was no hard feeling in his voice, but then again, it was a very warm day and Alfred’s lemonade made it almost impossible to bear ill will towards anyone.

“It says here,” said Jason, stabbing a finger at a highly-colored page of newsprint, “that you, the entitled one, are dating some Scandinavian babe called Helene Stolt-Nielsen.”

Damian turned dark red and sat up in his hammock.A stack of Pringles slid off his chest onto the grass.

“The last time I saw the Stolt-Nielsen twins was when I was eight years old at a League of Assassins summit.”

“They’re really hot,” said Jason appreciatively.He leaned an elbow into Damian’s hammock and pushed the magazine towards its small, disgusted occupant.

“They are empty-skulls.And very old. At least fourteen.”

“I think you mean either empty-heads or numbskulls”, said Richard at his most helpful, delighted to have caught Damian out.

“I did not,” said Damian. “It is called a neologism.Which is a concept that those girls and you as well, Grayson, are too numb-headed to understand.”

“I could go to Norway,” said Jason. "That girl could go out with me.I’m much better-looking than you anyway."

Damian waved his hand magnanimously. “You may have both of them,” he said.

Barbara gave Richard a look. “Tickle him,” she said. “Now.” And they both descended on Damian’s hammock with a single, grim purpose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this redundant ending just because I love the idea of Damian being tickle-tortured. 
> 
> It's not a happy ending so much as an accommodation. Bruce will continue to have issues and so will Damian. And I think we like them that way, because it's so much more real.


End file.
